Tonight’s diary entry is a hasty late-night affair because of having only just got home.
I am in a state of contented exhaustion and considering getting drunk, although sensibly I thought I might write to you first.
I expect you appreciate that small gesture.
We have had a holiday, and it was lovely, even without the things that we like doing on holiday. It was probably a good idea not to do those anyway, as they are invariably expensive and some of them leave us rather unwell afterwards, so every cloud etc.
Thank goodness for the camper van.
Mark and Oliver did not go to work. When we got up we rushed around doing things, in my case the things that I didn’t bother about yesterday, being the yoghurt and the biscuits. Then the children emerged from their slumbers and whilst they were yawning and grumbling about the inconsiderate brightness of the daylight, Mark and I dashed off to get the camper van, which would not start.
The battery was completely flat, probably as a sort of protest about having been ignored and neglected and not allowed to go anywhere very much for most of the last year.
Obviously it started in the end, because of jump leads, and we hurled everything into it with squeaks of excitement and rushed off.
Mark worried about it on and off all day but I will save you from any kind of anxiety or stress by telling you here that it started every time after that, and so it was all right and nothing to worry about. There was a horrid burning smell at one point as well, but we never found out what it was, and it stopped after a while, so that was all right as well.
Apart from Asda I have not been anywhere very much for quite some time.
We went to Barrow.
There are lots of reasons that Barrow is not a popular holiday resort, the stunning view of the nuclear submarine factory is probably one of them, but I have never minded this and actually I like Barrow very much. It has a good-natured cheer about it, in a windswept sort of way. In any case it is very fashionable to be on holiday in a place where there are no other tourists at all. People try very hard to do this when they go to places like India, so that they can have an Authentic Experience, being Off The Tourist Trail and See The True India, and then come home and talk sagely about it afterwards. This is supposed to be a very good thing.
We had an Authentic Barrow Experience today.
We chugged all the way through the town and out at the other side to Walney Island. I always think that this is made less exciting as an island by having a convenient bridge linking it to the rest of Barrow, it would be a lot more thrilling if you had to get there in a boat, although probably prohibitively more expensive. Also it would be such a complete nuisance to live there that house prices would go through the roof. This always happens. Beaten up old ruins that are so far from anywhere that they have no electricity, and can only get water from their own dribbly sheep-poo-flavoured spring, cost five times as much as sensibly well-appointed houses that are a mere stone’s throw from the Co-op. I have not got the first idea why this might be.
We parked right on the seaside. Mark has installed a lot of rural broadband on Walney Island and knew where would be nice to stop, and he was right.
We did not go out straight away. Instead we sat comfortably around the table and ate the most colossal early afternoon breakfast that we could possibly squeeze in without needing to loosen our trousers, washed down with some spiced rum to help the nautical theme along.
This was ace. Eating is one of my favourite things. Barrow does not have the liberal quantity of doughnut suppliers which is one of the things that we like so much about Blackpool, so we brought our own, which made us feel that we were truly on holiday after all.
Rum and doughnuts. There can be nothing better.
Feeling slightly portly, we cocooned ourselves in warm jackets and tottered out on to the beach.
We needed the warm jackets because of the blustery wind which had come to Barrow on holiday from the Arctic.
We walked along the beach for miles, splashing in the little waves and skimming stones and yelling at one another above the noise of the wind. Roger Poopy rolled in some badger poo, which did not make him popular. Then we walked back along the cliff tops and collapsed into the warm silence of the camper van.
It was so warm and still and quiet that we all curled up and went blissfully to sleep, and when we woke up the afternoon was beginning to melt into the evening.
We had another walk before we came home, which you can see in the picture.
It is ages since I have done so much walking, and my legs were quite sore when we staggered back in the end.
I think I might regret it in the morning.
